RE: Re: A Call For Open Governance Of X Development (Egbert Eich)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] 
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Frank LaMonica
> Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 3:54 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [forum] Re: A Call For Open Governance Of X 

> FL-> XFree86 has evolved into a project with a much broader 
> scope, so it 
> FL-> is logical to explore new ways to
> manage it if the current method is
> threatened.  This discussion was
> precipitated by current XFree86 management,
> and by disgruntled developers who have
> "worked their butt off", but now feel they
> don't have the voice they feel they
> deserve.

Huh?  This forum was created because no one
would even reveal what the issues were that
motivated a split.

So, what are the issues?

> My comments suggest just one possible way
> to manage diverse opinions in a way that
> allows all parties to feel their voice is
> at least being heard.  Achieving that
> *might* help to prevent a fork that would
> affect many, many people in an extremely
> negative way.

Write code, join core, make the decisions.
That's how it works.

Why exactly is the fork happening?  What are
the issues that it resolves?  I've As it stands I
don't think this has been specified in any
way.

Reorganization for reorganization sake
perhaps.  Wonderful.   I hope the experiment
is successful.  Meanwhile, XFree86 has
cranked out how many releases that support
all the open source OSes for how many years?

> Successful organizations recognize the fact
> that it takes many people with many
> different skill sets to maintain a viable
> organization.  There are some excellent
> developers who also possess strong
> managerial skills.  Ideally, they are the
> type of person who would lead technical
> organizations.  unfortunately, there are
> many more great developers who not only
> lack managerial skills, but who don't even
> recognize the value that good management
> brings to an organization.  Technical
> people who start organizations that grow to
> global proportions almost always relinquish
> managerial control to experienced managers
> when the organization reaches a point where
> professional management is needed.

Perhaps this is true in business.  It's not
necessarily true in Open Source projects.

Ideally there's no money involved.  It just
gets in the way.

There's no marketing.  Perhaps if there were
people might be satisfied with the excellent
communication.  However, I'd far prefer
release notes than marketing communication.

The people who code should make the
decisions.  That's what it's all about.

>  This
> has happened in so many successful large
> organizations, that it is almost the
> expected evolution of a startup company.
> Xfree86 has grown to global proportions,
> and it needs to seriously consider whether
> or not its management is best suited to
> continue into the future.  Only they have
> the power to make the changes, and I
> sincerely hope they will thoughtfully
> consider ALL options.

XFree86 began global.  Heck we had no idea
what each each other's voice sounded like for
years and didn't find out what each other
looked like for nearly ten years.

This is a volunteer organization.  Management
cannot mandate schedules and dictate
direction as it might in a business.  The
individual developers of the core team
determine for themselves what components or
features they are motivated to pursue.

In my experience, the less management the
better.  The development team does it's own
release engineering and quality control.

> 
> > How would this person feel if soemone happened to be elected
> > to take over the leadership who has not written a single line 
> > of code for the project, but for example happens to be working 
> > for a "System integrator and distributors packaging X technology 
> > in various forms"?
> > Do you expect any serious developer would continue to work on
> > this project?

> FL-> If the elected person were qualified to manage the organization, 
> FL-> there is absolutely no need for that
> person to have ever written a line of code
> for any project.  Yes, I personally think
> it is very helpful for managers to also be
> technologists, that is NOT a prerequisite
> for great management.

OK, try it and see how well it works in an
open-source all-volunteer project.

>  I trust that the majority of people who
> would vote on a management team for XFree86
> would care enough about the outcome that
> they would not care one iota if the person
> "paid his or her dues" as a developer.

Why on earth would you want decisions to be
made by people who have no investment in the
organization?  That's almost the complete
opposite of how FreeBSD and XFree86 came to
be.


> Managing the organization should not be a
> reward for past technical achievements, it
> is a responsibility given to someone or
> some group of people, to ensure that the
> right people are given the right jobs
> within the organization to keep it
> successful into the future.

The people choose their own jobs.

And they sure as hell won't take direction
from someone who has no technical
understanding.   Heck they barely take
direction from those that do.

> It is also the
> job of management to look beyond the
> technical issues themselves, and try to
> direct the organization's efforts in a
> manner that will best serve its
> constituency.  I agree with Keith that the
> XFree86 constituency is very large and that
> it must all be heard.  Good management
> doesn't interfere with good developers, it
> supports them.  It also, however, supports
> the larger community that depends on the
> technology being developed.

Good luck influencing the developers at all
unless you are making their own goals
easier for them to achieve.

It isn't clear that Keith planned to listen
to all the community.  He was gathering a
group of vested interests by invitation only.
When exactly did he create a forum for
everyone to be heard?

> 
> > 
> > Now what we do need are interfaces to those project that 
> group around 
> > XFree86. This is an issue that needs to be worked out but 
> it is a two
> > way issue. 
> > 
> >  >     * Lack of cooperation with other projects
> >  > 
> >  >       The KDE and Gnome projects were forced to form the 
> freedesktop.org
> >  >       project to extend and enhance X Window System 
> standards because
> >  >       XFree86 refused even to participate in the process.
> > 
> > Now just for my curiosity:
> > 
> > On which occasion has XFree86 refused to participate in this
> > process?
> > Maybe some of the UI people here can help me out? 
> > As we also want to hear critizism this should be openly discussed
> > here.
> > 
> > 
> > Egbert.
> > 
> > 
> > --__--__--
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> > End of Forum Digest
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